Communication Barriers: Jeanne Lewis Case Study

Communication is an interaction among various people. The way people interact can be verbal or
non-verbal. Verbal communication requires the transfer of information or ideas orally. Now, the
information or ideas can be relayed through varies types of mediums. Those mediums are phones, walkie-
talkies, intercoms, meetings, internet, mail, flyers, and etc. Mediums are used to parlay verbal and non-
verbal communication. Non-verbal communication is a non-audible communication in other words it
lacks speech. Emails, letters, memos, and body language are examples of non-verbal communication. The
flow of information or ideas, whether it is verbal or non-verbal, must be static free. Static is interference
in communication that causes confusion or a lack of understanding. Everyone communicates but do they
communicate effectively. In order to communicate effectively the message must be understood by the
receiver. There are four barriers to communication. Those barriers are Process Barriers, Personal Barriers,
Physical Barriers, and Semantic Barriers. Three of these barriers are exemplified in the Jeanne Lewis
Case Study.

There are seven obstructions in communication that can cause a Process Barrier. Those
obstructions can be originated by the sender, encoding, message, medium, decoding, receiver, and
feedback. The Process: A sender encodes information or thoughts and then projects those into a created
message. The message is then delivered via a medium. Then the receiver decodes that message and
encodes a response which is thrown back to the original sender. The encoded response sent back to the
sender is known as feedback. Now this process creates a circular flow of communication and anything
that diverts that flow becomes an obstruction. Referring to the Jeanne Lewis Case Study, Staples
organization has a Process Barrier caused by obstructions in communication. One reported that at first
impression, he worried that Lewis might be a micro-manager, but soon realized that she liked to inspire
dialogue and debate to ensure that they dug deeply in their decision making (Suesse, 2000). Lewis’ was
first thought to be a micro-manager but then later thought to be more of a motivator for deep decision
making. This means that the message she was projecting to her subordinates was being decoded wrong
and as a result she was mistakenly associated with being a micro-manager. Looking even closer one
might see that the medium Lewis was using caused an obstruction. Many found these exchanges intense
and more productive in one-on-one interactions, as opposed to group settings (Suesse, 2000). It’s inferred
through this statement that group meetings were causing receiver obstructions. Meetings or exchanges
that are intense tend to lead to receiver obstruction. Often in meetings that are intense receivers are to
busy arguing amongst themselves to hear or listen to the sender, thus causing a receiver not to acquire the
message. An obstruction in regards to the medium being used is seen here also. The medium is group
meetings. The sender (Lewis) uses the group meetings but the subordinates aren’t relaying feedback. The
lack of feedback is apparent because the one-on-one interactions are more productive. Effective
communications equals higher productivity. The Process Barrier impacts the organization in that it
breaks down the communication flow among its employees. The break down of communication will
inevitably lower Staples productivity unless of course the management team eliminates the Process
Barrier. The process barrier also complicated the interaction between team members and management.
Eliminating the Process Barrier will allow the flow of communication to become effective and ultimately
increase productivity. The Process Barrier can be an organizational nightmare.

There are several Personal Barriers that exist in communication. Three of those barriers are
inadequate listening dexterity, inaccurately assessing the sender’s message, and the aptitude to
successfully communicate a message. Inadequate listening dexterity occurs when people are unable to
process a message. The communication skills required to decode the message being thrown at them, are
insufficient. Inaccurately assessing the sender’s message refers to the misinterpretation of a message. For
example, Lets say I (I being from a discount store environment) tell a person working in a grocery store to
start recovery. The person would start cleaning up the store such as sweeping and mopping. However, I
wanted him to move product from the back of the shelves forward and stack the product up. The grocery
store employee would’ve misinterpreted my message because of his experience in the grocery business. If
I would have told the employee to start facing the store, I would’ve gotten the result I was looking for.
The fact is that different industries and different experience may lead to coined terms that aren’t
necessarily understood by the people receiving the message. People have different levels of aptitude of
communication skills. Those varies levels of communication abilities can hinder the circular flow of
communication. Personal Barriers exist in Staples organization. The following excerpt from the Jeanne
Lewis Case Study is an example of a Personal Barrier.

In the early days, Stemberg’s team of five (himself, Krasnow, CFO, VP of Operations, VP of Merchandising) each had
their own primary sphere of responsibility, but they all worked very closely together, doing whatever it took to get the job done.
They began the morning with a 7:00 o’clock meeting, reconvened for a working lunch and generally worked through the evening
until 10:00 o’clock. They hashed out virtually every decision together early on developing the discipline to back up their
“intuitions” with hard data. Krasnow’s optimism, exceptional dedication, and “big picture” perspective often keep the most
heated debates substantive, rather than personal. (Suesse, 2000)

Inadequate listening dexterity is apparent because of the vast amount of time (7am-10pm) the team of five
needed to hash out decisions. Another reason; Hashing out decision indicates that the team was trying to
cut through all the confusion. Lacking listening skills tends to cause confusion therefore its reasonable to
assume that Inadequate Listening Dexterity was present in Staples. Inaccurately assessing the sender’s
message transpires at Staples. The detail in this excerpt that raises the red flag so to speak is that they had
heated debates, according to the excerpt. A heated debate leads up to the idea that some members of the
team were getting frustrated with the communication within the meetings. Frustration occurs when people
misinterpret what other people are saying (communicating). The misinterpretation can be caused from
misreading non-verbal cues or simple misunderstanding of the verbal communication. The point is that in
Staples team of five there were times when the sender’s message wasn’t properly interpreted or was
misinterpreted by the receivers. The inaccurate assessments of the varying sender’s and receivers within
this group have a negative correlation to the aptitudes of successful communication. All five team
members come from different backgrounds, specialize in different fields, and have different experience
levels. All those factors play a part in how effectively or how high their aptitude of communication is.
The varying level of communication ability thus correlates with the inaccurate assessments of a sender’s
message in that the variation causes the breakdown in the communication process (Static).One result of
the Personal Barriers is that heated debates did occur and long meetings which shows their was Static
present.. Another effect of the Personal Barriers that existed at Staples was that Krasnow had to keep the
communication in perspective in order to cool off the heated debates.

Physical Barriers are barriers that are caused by physical realities such as distance, time, the non-
availability or quality of some medium devices such as the internet, telephone, television and etc. The
distance between employees can interfere with effective communication (Kreitner&Kninicki, 2004).
Communication can be distorted when employees work in close confinement or when they are mile apart
(Kreitner&Kninicki, 2004). An example of a distance as a barrier is a prisoner of the state. A prisoner is
confined to a cell limiting is access to travel distances. A prisoner can’t simple drive to the wardens house
and convey a message because he is restricted by bars which are his physical barriers of communication.
The following is an example of a medium device being a barrier. A person living in a desolate area of the
United States decides that he or she want to place an order over the internet. Now when they go to place
that order they are unable to place it because the wireless internet that they subscribe to isn’t functional.
Look at it this way the order is the message, the person ordering is the sender, the internet is the medium,
and the physical barrier is the wireless internet service not working. The company Staples has Physical
Barriers. Staples grew from a 3 billion dollar business with 500 stores to a projected 10 billion dollar
business with 1500 stores and over 12,000 employees. Distance is definitely a physical barrier that exists.
Having 1500 stores in varies states can be a barrier because of geographical location and time zone
differences. Geographical locations and time zone difference are barriers because they impede the flow of
communication within the organization. Not only does the flow of communication get slowed down it
runs the risk of being non-relevant by the time the message is received. The size of the company can also
be viewed as a physical barrier because it’s the size of the company directly impacts the communication
flow. Think about it! The more levels a company has in their organizational structures the more levels
communication must flow through. The more places information travels through a company the greater
chances that information gets distortion or static. Therefore, the size of the company could also be a
physical barrier. To minimize the distortion of communication and to optimize the flow of
communication Staples task force created a Point Team. The Point Teams is a result of the physical
barriers within Staples. Since the top team felt they could no longer rely on proximity to keep up with
developments in the company, this Point Team was charged with ensuring the sharing of goals, key
information and alignment on policy issues and decisions (Seusse, 2000).

Communication never stops it flows twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Communication
never sleeps. Communication in other words flows continuously (note it should flow circularly to be
effective). People revolve around communication in one form or another. The problems with
communication occur when Process Barriers, Personal Barriers, Physical Barriers and Semantic Barriers
exist. These barriers break the circular flow of communication and result in miscommunication. Given
communication is the most important asset in today’s society it is absolutely critical that we communicate
effectively.

References:

Review Case Study: Suesse, J.M. (2000). Jeanne Lewis at Staples, Inc. (Abridged). Boston: Harvard
Business School Publishing, pp. 1-14 (78-91).

Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A. (2004) Organizational Behavior. New York NY: The Mc Graw Hill
Companies, Inc. (pp.524-526).